***Official*** South Africa in New Zealand 2017

[StephenZA]

QdK went for scans yesterday on injured finger and may miss 3rd test.

Over to you Heinrich Klaasen.

Could be big news for Klaasens... going to be difficult to dislodge QDK from 7, but if management decide that they want to move QDK up the order and play him just as a batsmen... who knows.

 

[Zinzan]

QdK went for scans yesterday on injured finger and may miss 3rd test.

Over to you Heinrich Klaasen.

Jeez, that would be disappointing on one level, but would be some respite for NZ.

I'm still sour with them since that gutless feeble performance in Wellington. hence have been avoiding this thread the last few days.

 

[SeamUp]

Could be big news for Klaasens... going to be difficult to dislodge QDK from 7, but if management decide that they want to move QDK up the order and play him just as a batsmen... who knows.

Jeez, that would be disappointing on one level, but would be some respite for NZ.

I'm still sour with them since that gutless feeble performance in Wellington. hence have been avoiding this thread the last few days.

Obviously QdK is a freak but Klaasen couldn't have done much more for this debut (if he gets it).

Quite tall for a keeper but scores naturally quick with proper cricket shots.

Had a very good SA emerging tour to Sri Lanka 2 years back where he was our best batsman so if Hamilton turns you would like to think he can handle that.

 

[Mike5181]

QdK went for scans yesterday on injured finger and may miss 3rd test.

Over to you Heinrich Klaasen.

Dang, this guy has to be close to making a squad based on batting alone with those numbers.

 

[StephenZA]

I'm still sour with them since that gutless feeble performance in Wellington. hence have been avoiding this thread the last few days.

I hate it when that happens,man I was pissed off after the English toured SA.. but been good since then.

 

[SeamUp]

I hate it when that happens,man I was pissed off after the English toured SA.. but been good since then.

Lol that is why it always best to have more than one sporting passion and I play them off each other when disappointment hits.

 

[SeamUp]

Dang, this guy has to be close to making a squad based on batting alone with those numbers.

Pretty impressive isn't it. Boucher eventually had to promote him up the order in the Titans 4-day team because he is basically a batsman.

 

[vcs]

I like the fact that most decent cricket fans aren't overly partisan about their teams. So there's always something interesting going on even when your team is ****.

 

[Zinzan]

I hate it when that happens,man I was pissed off after the English toured SA.. but been good since then.

Yeah, I think it was also that I'd declined a wine tasting trip with my missus and a big group (which caused a bit of drama) to laze around watching an enthralling day of Test cricket on Saturday; only for them to fold like a pack of cards.

 

[Marius]

Dang, this guy has to be close to making a squad based on batting alone with those numbers.

Lot of it is skewed by playing in the three-day stuff, but he's got decent franchise numbers.

He's played 12 franchise four day games, and he's averaging 40.5. That said, this season, he's played nine games and his average is nearly 49, and he's second in the Titans averages, after Markram. So, he can play.

 

[Prince EWS]

Dang, this guy has to be close to making a squad based on batting alone with those numbers.

Burned by three-day voodoo yet again.

 

[Daemon]

Burned by three-day voodoo yet again.

Arguably the worst part about losing cricketarchive

 

[SeamUp]

You know I've come across players with improved records from 3-day to 4-day cricket.

 

[Mike5181]

Burned by three-day voodoo yet again.

Not like this.

 

[SeamUp]

Lot of it is skewed by playing in the three-day stuff, but he's got decent franchise numbers.

He's played 12 franchise four day games, and he's averaging 40.5. That said, this season, he's played nine games and his average is nearly 49, and he's second in the Titans averages, after Markram. So, he can play.

Nice scorecard this for him : Dolphins v Titans at Pietermaritzburg, Feb 2-5, 2017 | Cricket Scorecard | ESPN Cricinfo

I liked how he was quite honest about his call-up saying that this was only really his first full franchise season but then again I suppose 3-day cricket is better than playing club on a weekend only so it does prepare you for that next level.

Heinrich Klaasen enjoyably admits his game is free of “tierlantyntjies (frills)”.

The 25 year old graduate of Menlo Park High in Pretoria doesn’t mind being just a plain old cricketer, because "plain old" sees him on a flight to Auckland on Saturday, where he will be hooking up with the Proteas Test squad ahead of the three-match series against New Zealand, starting in Dunedin on March 8.

Klaasen who, along with fellow Menlo High alumnus Theunis de Bruyn was named in a 16-man squad to tackle the Black Caps, says his approach to the game is simple: “I hit the ball and I catch the ball.”

That’s the approach, but that doesn’t mean Klaasen (pictured) is so naive as to think that’s all that’s required to make it at international or even franchise level. “In order to do those things you need a good technique,” he says.

The "no frills" approach was first highlighted by Cricket South Africa’s National Academy coach Shukri Conrad, who described Klaasen as a "poor man’s MS Dhoni", and has worked particularly well for Klaasen this season, although he admits, it’s taken a great deal of mental application for him to realise he was good enough, just to play for the Titans.

“I struggled mentally, I did doubt my ability and towards the end of last season I did some work with Rob Walter (former Titans coach) and then of course with Mark Boucher when he came. They helped me to get in a good mental space, to believe in myself, to back myself more.”

The mental side of the game is an element Klaasen refers to constantly, and it’s an area that for him is continually evolving. Every aspect of his game feeds back to it; from training specific wicket-keeping techniques with current Titans coach Boucher, or just interacting with players who’ve been in the Proteas set up like Dean Elgar and Chris Morris.

Klaasen admits his selection for the New Zealand tour was unexpected. “This is my first fullish season at franchise level, you look at someone like Rudi Second who’s been performing well for a few seasons in four-day cricket, so for me...this has come quite soon.”

Indeed, Second, still just 27, was in sizzling form in the second half of the Sunfoil Series, scoring two of his three centuries in this season’s competition when the event resumed at the start of the year. He finished with an aggregate of 684 runs, 49 more than Klaasen.

The Titans keeper had mapped out a path towards his first Proteas cap, which involved being the main man for the SA A side. “I talked to Dean and Chris on the golf course a few months back, and the goal was to establish myself in the SA A side. I guess you could say I had a two to three year plan with that, but I’m very grateful for this call-up and I’m looking forward to learning from those okes up there.”

Where Klaasen perhaps stood out ahead of Second this season is when he scored his runs, often with the Titans in trouble, with the first of his four half-centuries in the Sunfoil Series being particularly important.

“The first innings against the Knights in the first Sunfoil game was a big knock for me, the team was under pressure and I made 82. I took a lot of confidence from that performance.” Playing well under pressure became a feature of Klaasen’s play this season; he made two half-centuries in the same match against the Cobras, with his side 114/4 in the first innings and 80/4 in the second. His highest score this season, 195 against the Dolphins, came out of a Titans first innings total of 403. Given the trouble he’s had with the mental side of his game, it’s a feather in his cap that he’s able to shine brightly when times are darkest.

“Whether at Tuks, school, provincial, where I bat at 5,6 or 7 I'm was always under pressure, but that’s when I played my best. It’s always how I’ve preferred to play,” he says.

In an age of transformation targets and proposed changes to the domestic structure, and of Kolpak-deals and T20 leagues, it's comforting to have cricketers like Heinrich Klaasen. The newest addition to South Africa's Test squad has followed what can be called a traditional route to the top and has proved that, despite all the perceived hurdles, a cricketer who is good enough will get called up.

Klaasen, from Pretoria, has not just climbed every step on the ladder to success but he's spent a significant amount of time standing on each one. His cricket career started at school, where he decided to become a wicketkeeper-batsman and spent time honing both disciplines. He progressed to the Northerns under-19 side before embarking on further studies in Human Movement Studies at the University of Pretoria (Tuks), where he was part of the Academy.

Tuks' is home to one of the best high-performance programmes in the country and has produced several international players including AB de Villiers, Faf du Plessis, the Morkel brothers, Paul Harris and Marchant de Lange. During Klaasen's time there, current Leicestershire coach Pierre de Bruyn was in charge and he oversaw a crucial stage of Klaasen's development that resulted in him being picked for the Northerns provincial team.

For three summers, Klaasen was among their best performers. He averaged 42.58 in his first season, 52.10 in his second and 65.25 in his third, but could not crack the franchise team. Titans had an embarrassment of riches when it came to batting, keeping, and batting and keeping, with Heino Kuhn and Mangaliso Mosehle occupying the available spots. Someone else would have seen a blocked path and sought opportunity elsewhere; Klaasen was content to bide his time despite the obstacles.

"It was a really good three years for me in the semi-professional competition," Klaasen told ESPNcricinfo. "It allowed me to sort out my own game. The provincial set-up is very good for that kind of thing. When you play there, you don't always get a good wicket and that helps you. For example, there were a few games where we thought the wicket was flat and the opposition scored 400 but then then bowled us out for 70. It's a competition that puts you in different situations and you have to deal with them. I got an offer from the Cobras but I didn't feel I had to go. I was quite happy to wait for my chance at the Titans."

In the 2016-17 summer, with Mosehle having left for Lions and Kuhn concentrating only on batting, Klaasen's turn came. It coincided with the appointment of Mark Boucher as Titans' coach, which could not have worked out better for Klaasen. "He has made a really big impact on me, both for my keeping and for my mental game," Klaasen said.

The results have been immediate. Klaasen finished seventh on the first-class competition batting charts with 635 runs at 48.84, which included his first franchise hundred. Although he was more than 200 runs behind the leader, Colin Ackermann, Klaasen had reason to think he may be rewarded at the highest level.

"When Dane Vilas signed a Kolpak-deal, I did think about it [getting a call-up] but I was still very surprised that it happened so quickly," he said. Not least because another wicketkeeper-batsman, Rudi Second, was above Klaasen on the run-scorers' list and is more experienced.

But the selectors have seen something they like in Klaasen - it may be his higher strike-rate of 65.71 compared to Second's 50.01 - and they have decided to go with him first. In doing so, they have also continued to debunk the myth that a grave consequence of South Africa's push towards aggressive transformation will be to deny white players. In fact, there is now sufficient evidence to overturn that theory altogether. South Africa's two most recent Test call-ups, Theunis de Bruyn and Klaasen, are both white, as is their most recent Test cap, Duanne Olivier, and so too their latest ODI representative, Dwaine Pretorius.

Still, that does not guarantee Klaasen game-time, although it's his speciality and not his skin colour that is the cause of that. Klaasen will travel to New Zealand as back-up to Quinton de Kock and is unlikely to play unless there is an injury. That could well be the case for most of his career. De Kock has the hegemony on the job that Boucher had, which means for the foreseeable future, other gloveman will have to be understudies, so Klaasen has a plan to combat that. "That's the reason why I have tried to work so hard on my batting," he said.

Even there, there is a queue. De Bruyn is next in line and a certain AB de Villiers may yet return which could leave Klaasen waiting for a while longer still. That's why he is looking at this tour as purely a learning experience. It will take a place in a country he has never been to, in the company of some people he does not even know.

"There are some players I have never spoken to at all, like Hashim Amla, so I am really looking forward to learning from him," Klaasen said. "And also from some of the other guys. I just want to learn the culture and be able to take that back to my franchise. I know there's a lot I can work on."

As is the case for any young cricketer, this is how it starts.

 

[Heboric]

Big loss if QDK cant play.

I was thinking that it must be so difficult for wicket keepers in South Africa having aspirations to play for the Proteas.

We have had the luxury of Boucher who started young and now De Kock. How many test wicket keepers have we had since readmission

 

[SeamUp]

Big loss if QDK cant play.

I was thinking that it must be so difficult for wicket keepers in South Africa having aspirations to play for the Proteas.

We have had the luxury of Boucher who started young and now De Kock. How many test wicket keepers have we had since resubmission

For test caps since re-admission outside of Swinger Richardson , Bouch , AB and Qdk I can think of only Tsolekile & Vilas. Others just got limited overs caps ?

Dave Richardson had pretty much jumped the old Ray Jennings at the end for Rebels Series and Errol Stewart got some ODI games. Paul 'Porky' Kirsten was around.
Mark Boucher held off Steve Palframan, Nic Pothas, Morne van Wyk and Thami Tsolekile [a bit of Dane Vilas/Heino Kuhn/Daryn Smit]

And like you say - Second, Klaasen, Mosehle are all older than Qdk so the odd tour here and there really.

I hope Qdk is fine though. You just want to watch talents like him all the time.

 

[Zinzan]

Can somebody tell this Heinrich Klaasen chappy that de Kock is going to be around for the next 15 years and show him some photos of the MIlford Sounds. No point him staying in SA as a keeper, especially with the quota demands.

Jeez, we could do with some more Wagner/Watling-type cricketers in our Test set-up.

 

[Garson007]

I think 3-day cricket has really helped South Africa internationally. Gives that second level to provincial cricket.

 

[Mike5181]

Can somebody tell this Heinrich Klaasen chappy that de Kock is going to be around for the next 15 years and show him some photos of the MIlford Sounds.

Or spam him with photos of pavlovas, either will do.